Tokugawa Ieyasu

Tokugawa Ieyasu was born on 31/1/1543 at Okazaki Castle, in the Mikawa domain (which is now Aichi prefecture). At this time Japan was ruled over by many different clans and they were always at war with each other. His father was a clan leader but a fairly weak man. His mother was the daughter of a neighboring Samurai lord. When he was a young boy, he was held hostage and threatened with execution on several occasions because of clan rivalry. When he was being held hostage by the Imagawa clan, the Imagawa clan was defeated by the Oda clan and Ieyasu managed to escape and allied himself to the Oda clan. His whole childhood was spent with feuding clans, murders and hostage taking. At the age of about 18, he became the lord of the Totomi and Mikawa provinces. Later the Oda clan's leader was assassinated and Ieyasu affiliated himself with the Toyotomi clan and became subordinate to them. When the Toyotomi's leader died, Ieyasu fought and beat the Toyotomi clan at the battle of Sekigahara and the siege of Osaka which were two of the bloodiest battles in the Japanese civil war. After he defeated all his enemies, he became a shogun and ruled most of the Japan. He took care of his health by eating healthy food, making medicine and going out to hunt so he lived for 75 years which is surprisingly long compared to the average age of 50 in those days. There are four reasons why he is my hero. First, he had a very hard time during his childhood and adulthood, but he never gave up. For example, when he was young, he was chased by his father's vassals and nearly got killed a few times. This is not a normal thing for most children. Also it took him 57 years to become a shogun. Can you imagine that? He waited for most of his life. He suffered a lot during those 60 years. Other reasons that he is my hero is that he was a peacemaker and he was intelligent. Once he became a Shogun, Japan was unified and there were no more civil wars for about 200 years. One reason for this is that he was intelligent and before he died, he appointed his son as Shogun so that there wouldn't be a civil war when he died. Not only was he a strong military leader, but he was also a good tactician. For example, when he was fighting the Toyotomi clan, he did not attack them head-on, he used spies (Ninjas) to find out where they were weak and he attacked them in their weak areas. The final reason why I chose Tokugawa Ieyasu as my hero is that he spent a lot of time in my prefecture and you can still visit the ruins of his castle and there is a statue of him in my home town.